New To SoulCysters & Sharing My Story w/ Y’all. 16 Years Of PCOS!

My name is Amber and I’m 30. Alan and I have been married 4 years and have no children. We have been trying to conceive w/o fertility drugs the entire time we have been married. I have had 2 early miscarriages, a col-po (due to a bad pap smear…I had HPV for a few months and then it never showed up again) and had to have a D&C since we’ve been married.

I started my period when I was 11. In 8th grade, I skipped my period for 4 months so my parents took me to the dr. The dr eventually diagnosed me with PCOS and told me to take the pill for regularity and my complexion. I didn’t fully understand what PCOS would become in my 20’s (and neither did my parents).

Up until my early 20’s, I would skip a lot of months, but I didn’t mind! Then things changed. I gained weight, basically just in my belly. I started to have facial hair, dandruff and adult acne (some of it cystic acne). My body stopped reacting well to the pill and I would bleed nearly every single day. My cramps got a lot worse too. I tried a few gynos and an endocrinologist, but none of them seemed knowledgeable on the subject…and, frankly, they didn’t seem to care.

At the end of 2009, a friend talked me into going to her gyno and she was great. Did blood work to check hormones and other stuff. She really talked to me about it. I told her how depressed I was. She put me on Metformin and provera (and told me to lose 50 lbs). I was already taking Celexa, Klonopin and Adderall. ***Ok, take a second to think about this…I have generalized anxiety disorder, adult add, issues with depression and PCOS (not to mention I have to wax my “goatee”…I can get very emotional at times!

In March 2010, I went on my lunch break to a nearby deli. I had been hurting really bad all morning. I’d also been on my period 7+ days. I went to the restroom in the deli and soemthing literally FELL OUT of my vagina and into the toilet. It was a massive clot. I’d been having clots for years, but this one was the biggest EVER. I called my husband and we headed to my gyno’s office. After a vaginal u/s, she said that I needed a D&C badly and to be there to prep for surgery at 5 am the next day.

Thankfully, I was cancer free. My uterus was just literally filled with lining that wasn’t shedding. I did well a while after that. Took my meds, quit smoking the occasional cig I’d bum from a friend if I had a drink out, went on a high-protein, low-card diet. Went to gym 5 days a week. Lost 50 lbs and was about to start clomid…then a miscarriage before I even got the clomid. I took it hard even though it wasn’t far along. I gave up the metformin and provera and the diet and gym.

Of course, I still had crazy periods and spotting and cramps and adult acne and whatnot, but I felt like there was no point in trying. All my friends were having babies. People asked Alan and I ALL THE FREAKING TIME when we were having a baby. I felt un-feminine and guilty. If I am infertile, then I rob my husband of being a dad and I rob my mom of being a grandmother. People and animals are put here to reproduce. Its the basis of all life…but I was defective.

I had to go to ER for a ruptured cyst in July 2012 but I just took it in stride too.Finally got better emotionally. Alan and I moved to Chattanooga for his job and then things got painful. I have been spot bleeding at times, passing just clots at times, experiencing extreme pelvic pain and feeling pressure near my rectum. I went to see a dr here in C’nooga. I had seen her once before to get my mental health drugs. She has hooked me up with a ton of tests to have done on 11/27/12 to find the reason.

She seems to really think that its fibroids though…because I told her that Alan and I had tried to have sex a few days before and that I was in horrible pain and we had to stop. That has never happened to me before. So I do some research on the uterine fibroids. They account for 3/4 of all hysterectomies in the U.S. and they grow rapidly and can attach to other organs. Great.

There is another surgery that can be done to remove them as long as the size is normal and I am doing to go that route if at all possible and then hurry home with clomid before something else breaks down in there. If I have to have a hysterectomy, Idk what I will do or feel like. This is all so foreign to me right now. My friends are having babies (or their 2nd baby) but I am having hot flashes and discussing hysterectomies with my husband (whom I can’t even have sex with right now).

I never knew how much PCOS would affect my life…and the lives of my family members. I find it impossible to talk to any of my friends about it really. I don’t think that people understand how badly all the symptoms and side effects can just manifest on you at once and they certainly can’t understand the depression and guilt I feel. And I don’t wanna make them feel guilty that they can reproduce and I can’t.

I have always wanted to have children and teach kindergarten. I taught 4K for 5 yrs and then became a FT nanny for 5 yrs. Since moving to C’nooga in Sept, I am taking a break from childcare. Too painful. I am going to stay home and care for our fur babies and our house until my PCOS is under control.

If I am never able to have a child, I know I will have to seek major therapy. Not only does it affect Alan and I now, but it affects years down the road. No grandchildren. No helping my daughter plan her wedding. We will just grow old alone. Its very scary.

I was doing much better emotionally til this last dr appt on fri. Now I’m sucked right back in the cycle of bad feelings. I hope to talk to more ladies out there that share my feelings, physically and emotionally. Glad I found SoulCysters.